Findings:Inheriting more than the furniture:the effect of parental genes on daughters'
longevity

Mothers of daughters have to live
over 85 years and their fathers only
have to live over 75 years to predispose their
female offspring to
live very long lives as well. Parents
who die before those years seem
to have no affect on the longevity of their
female offspring. This
study of the familial transmission of human
life span from parents to
daughters was co-authored by Natalia and
Leonid
Gavrilov, Research
Associates in NORC's Center on Aging, and
published in the prestigious Journal of Anti-Aging Medicine (Vol
4, No. 2, Summer 2001,
pp.115-124).

Studying daughters of noble
families
who were born between 1800 and
1880, Natalia and Leonid Gavrilov show that
long-life genes appear to
influence daughters' whose mothers have lived
past 85 and whose
fathers have lived past 75. "Women
who live above this age [85] are
fundamentally (presumably genetically)
different
from other women in
the sense that their daughters live
significantly
longer"(p. 121).
"Daughters born to shorter-lived fathers (died
before 75 years) do not
inherit paternal life span" (p. 122).

The Gavrilovs chose daughters of royal
and
noble families to study
because they were a "privileged social group
[that] lived in favorable
conditions" where "one could expect less
influence
of adverse social
factors (poverty, for example)" (p.
116).
Further, "daughters did
not have a high incidence of violent causes
of death due to military
service" (p. 115).

The mechanisms that influence longevity
are
likely to be complex, much
like those of eye or skin color.
Nevertheless,
this research offers
one more thing for women to thank an aged
parent for.

Questions, comments and suggestions should be sent to Julie Antelman
at
Antelman@norcmail.uchicago.edu